This Land

Made For You & Me

This June saw us head down to the US South, Midwest, & Dustbowl regions in pursuit of checking out some of the less-frequently-visited states. You can’t go to all 50 states without these ones- read on to find out what we encountered on our tour of Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas.

It wouldn’t be a “Mike & Dana” trip if it didn’t start with flight issues. At 5AM, we got a text message saying our morning flight to Memphis was canceled and wasn’t going to be rescheduled until Sunday. We scrambled and found a flight for that afternoon into Nashville, and decided that we would take that instead, grab a rental car from Nashville to drive to Memphis, then drop it off and pick up our original rental car (the rates were too crazy to do it any other way). If all went well, we’d arrive around ~9PM in Memphis. We caught a last-minute stowaway and told him he was gonna have to wait at home

The revised plan is set and our Uber to the airport arrives at the house- a Gray Ford Escape with a banged up passenger door, a missing side mirror, and non-functioning seatbelts.

We grab an airport beer at Chickie’s and Pete’s, a travel ritual for us flying out of Philly.

The backup flight is Frontier airlines, which is just a liiiittle bit less roomy than what we’re used to. The tray table is definitely more “tray” than “table” (headphones for scale).

American Airlines customer support calls us back literally as our plane is lifting off the ground, and we are on our way to Tennessee.

We got our very-short-term rental car, a white Corolla. Ordinarily this wouldn’t even really be worth mentioning here, except for the fact that this car must have had some kind of terrible alignment issue and would shake VIOLENTLY when you reached 50 MPH. We had to get to the rental car desks in Memphis before they closed at 10, however, so we had no choice but to press on in the shaky car.

We stopped at a fast food joint I’d never heard of called Krystal. I’m lame but I always like to try new ones when we travel. It’s basically white castle.

We finally got to the Memphis airport, swapped our death-trap Corolla for a Ford Escape, and then headed downtown for our lodgings at the historic Peabody Hotel.

It’s famous for its “duck march” (more on that later), so the drinks at the hotel bar are served “ducky”:

We’re exhausted at this point and hit the hay in anticipation of a big day tomorrow.

We woke up the next morning and went to the Tamp and Tap cafe, a place that seems like it was truly designed for me- breakfast sandwiches, espresso, retro gaming, Secret Aardvark hot sauce, and an orange & black color scheme.

Megaman X 2 in the SNES!

After breakfast, we walked over to the National Civil Rights Museum, which is built into the Lorraine Motel, the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.

In the first section of the museum, we learned about Resurrection City and the Poor Peoples’ Campaign, two civil rights campaigns organized by MLK which I don’t think I ever learned about in school. Resurrection city was basically a physical occupation of the National Mall in D.C., with a full on tent-city created on the grounds. Unfortunately that section of the museum didn’t allow photos, but I highly encourage you to read about it- I recognized a lot of similarity between these movements and ones we’ve seen in more recent years: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/remembering-poor-peoples-campaign-180968742/

The next section was the main museum, and as soon as you walk in, the specter of the KKK looms large.

The museum showcases many different aspects of civil rights movements throughout American history, including protests marches, the Montgomery bus boycott, and much more than I could possibly summarize in this post:

The museum culminates with the actual motel room & balcony where MLK spent his final moments. Stepping into that space is an incredibly powerful moment.

Feeling quite humbled, we returned to the Peabody in time to catch the duck march, a daily tradition at the hotel wherein they march a flock of ducks down a red carpet into the main lobby fountain so they can swim around all afternoon.

Cute!

This busy morning resulted in a mighty hunger, so we sought out some true Memphis BBQ at The Rendezvous, right around the corner from the Peabody. The ribs did not disappoint.

After we ate, we checked out of the hotel and headed off to Graceland to check out Elvis’ home.

We walked through his personal planes, which are parked on the property.

Check out the golden sink

Graceland has a whole campus full of museums to look at long before you get to the actual house, and they are packed with some really cool artifacts.

Eventually we got to do the actual house tour:

Eventually you reach the memorial gardens, his final resting place alongside other family members.

After wrapping up at Graceland, we’re just a few short miles from the border of Mississippi, so we drive down there so we can officially say, “yes, we made it to Mississippi”. We grabbed some rolled up ice cream at Rockin Rolls Ice Cream in Southaven, MS.

Once we were all finished with our ice cream, it was time to set out for next destination: Hot Springs, Arkansas. Unbeknownst to us, however, was that about 2 miles down the road, a large Trump rally was culminating, and you-know-who’s motorcade passed us on the opposite side of the highway:

Side note: there’s this weird, giant pyramid in Memphis near the river.

When you get closer though, it turns out it’s just a Bass Pro Shops, LOL.

Made it to Arkansas though!

It’s Dana’s turn to drive for bit, and you can tell how thrilled she is with the Escape that we got:

Another side note here: this car would have claimed the title of Worst Rental Car ever except for the fact that we had just driven that Corolla from Nashville which felt like it was going to disintegrate at any moment. The Escape featured:

• A roof rack that we did not request, which slowed the thing down and howled in the wind as soon as you got up to speed
• A non-functioning navigation/Apple carplay system, such that we resorted to listening to the radio the entire trip, until it started to work on the very last day, almost like an intentional insult
• The slowest, lousiest rear gate of all time
• Virtually zero pickup on the highway, making for a really great time for a trip which includes driving over 1000 miles

Ok I’m done complaining.

By evening time, we reached Hot Springs, Arkansas, a historic site and one of the more unique National Parks that you’ll ever see. Our hotel here is the Hotel Hale, one of the handful historic bath houses built on the main street here and the only hotel built within the the actual park bounds.

The park is famous for its natural hot springs, made possible by geothermal energy. The tub is actually fed by natural hot spring water (at a temperature of 143 degrees, so be careful getting in!)

The sun is already set at this point, so after eating and walking up and down the main drag a bit, it’s time to hit the sack and get ready to explore the next day.

After a good rest and a nice hot bath (when in Rome!), we took to exploring the town. The main street is lined with 19th century bath houses, fed by natural hot spring water, including our hotel, the Hale.

There’s 7-8 or so total bath houses along the street here. In its heyday, this town was known as a getaway for gangsters (including Al Capone) and baseball stars (including Babe Ruth).

The Fordyce Bathouse serves as the National Park visitors center.

The inside features a tour of the bath house as it was when it was still in service.

Check out these steam chambers!

The outdoor area behind the park features a couple acres of walking paths. The fountains and natural water features are all very hot to the touch, fed by hot springs of course.

It is wild to kneel down and run your hand through a stream and feel it nearly burn you. These green covers are locked, but if you were to open them you’d find a hot pool of water to dip your feet in. They keep them locked so as not to contaminate the water. This is important because, among other things, one of the bath houses was converted to a brewery!

Before we finished out our time in Hot Springs, we stopped in a crazy little candy store called Rocket Fizz, which features every flavor of novelty soda you could imagine. Which one are you having?

I went with Key Lime and PB&J, personally.

At this point, we had dinner at our hotel and retired, resting in advance of a long day on the road tomorrow.

Monday morning wake up and it’s time to get back on the road. This time we’re headed to Ft. Smith, Arkansas, right on the border of Oklahoma. We took some very rural highways through the Oauchita National Forest

Wouldn’t be a Mike & Dana trip without yet another new-to-us fast food stop, this time it’s Taco Bueno

After we ate, we arrived at our first real destination, the Fort Smith National Monument. It was known as “Hell on the border” in the mid-late 19th century, serving as a center of justice for western Arkansas as well as everything west of Arkansas.

It featured a very dark, dank basement jail. Cozy!

It also featured a large gallows, which apparently also saw a lot of use.

After we wrapped up our tour, our next stop is Fayetteville, in Northwest, Arkansas.

We dropped our stuff off, and then headed over to nearby Bentonville, AR- the home of Wal-Mart. It is a bizarre, idyllic little town and it seems completely and utterly fake. It’s full of million dollar homes in the middle of otherwise completely remote, rural Arkansas, and it only exists as such because Wal-Mart corporate is based here.

The first stop here is the original Walton’s Five & Dime.

The store actually feeds into the Wal-Mart museum, which I hate to admit was actually pretty interesting.

The best part though is the blue & yellow ice cream (for only $1.26!)

Time to head back to the hotel and crash before yet another long stretch on the road the next day.

The next morning we hit the road on our way to Tulsa, OK.

Another day on the road, another new eatery. This time it’s Braum’s, a burger/ice cream joint that also seems to have a little mini-mart in it.

Welcome to Oklahoma!

It’s very flat.

Eventually we found the actual city of Tulsa, OK though.

We went to an exceptional city park called The Gathering Place, but the feels-like temperature was something like 105 F, so we didn’t last too long out there.

We stopped by the Tulsa Historic Center, which featured a pretty cool exhibit on the original Route 66, a key part of Oakie history.

There’s also a 76-foot tall statue of an oil driller down the road.

After that, we met up with an online buddy who’s been posting on the same message board as me for like 17-18 years or so- when a meetup opportunity presents itself, you take it!

His username is Beavertail, I’ll let you guess why.

After a long day in the heat and with a belly full of pizza, it’s time to head back to the hotel to crash.

After breakfast, the first place that we head is the newly-opened Bob Dylan Center in the arts district. An observation at this point is Tulsa actually has a real Portland vibe to it.

The museum features a lot of cool artifacts, like hand-written lyric sheets, instruments, photos, and lots more.

This is the literal tambourine which inspired Mr. Tambourine Man.

This little faux-studio features dials which let you listen to a song and fade out the different tracks to create your own mix.

I was moved by this note from Bob about his feelings on Jimi Hendrix’s version of All Along The Watchtower

Also not to be missed is the neighboring Woodie Guthrie Center

A genuine Pete Seeger banjo!

Woodie was a WWII vet. Can you imagine the things he must have talked about with his unit?

Following these two most excellent celebrations of cultural figures & history in the US, it was time to take in a much more solemn piece of history- the Greenwood Rising Black History Center.

This neighborhood was the site of a devastating race massacre in the early 20th century which saw a white mob burn the thriving black neighborhood of Greenwood to the ground and slaughter dozens of innocent people.

This photo is particularly notable- it shows the black side of town rebuilding and living in literal tents (for years!), while the white folks on the other side of the train tracks continued to live comfortably in their houses.

After a morning of museums & history, it was lunch time at one of the best little soul-food kitchens I have ever experienced, Wanda J’s Next Generation Restaurant (in Greenwood, naturally).

Just look at this chicken-fried steak, OMG

After we finished up lunch, it’s on the road again. Our next hotel is in Missouri, but we have a few stops along the way.

Welcome to MO!

The first is the three-state-corner marker of Kansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri, and we stood in 3 states at once.

A little further down the road we reached the George Washington Carver monument, which is where he grew up. There’s some nice trails along the grounds a museum which tells about his history and legacy.

The cabin where he was raised.

The list of peanut by-products that he created is crazy!

We got back on the road and headed to our hotel, via some VERY rural highways.

The hotel Dana had originally wanted to book was full up because of a conference that was in town… so we went to Margaritavilla instead.

It was a bit too late in the day to get in the pool, so we got some food and some drinks by the water.

We even met a little friend outside, who Dana dubbed Rickard.

This day of the trip was definitely our “take it easy” day. We slept in, ate good food, and had drinks by the pool literally all day.

We also played mini golf in the evening, where Dana managed no less than THREE hole-in-ones, WTF!

She won, obviously.

Slept easy that night- you would too after that many frozen drinks in the sun.

The next morning we got breakfast and then set out for Kansas City, but our first stop would be Independence, MO.

A 3 hour drive through VERY rural Missouri resulted in some unexpected Amish buggy sightings!

Eventually we ended up in the small town of Indepdendence, MO, the home of U.S. president Harry Truman.

…but the first order of business was lunch at a hot dog joint called Up Dog.

After that, we took a tour of his family home. Unfortunately, they didn’t allow pictures indoors, but I managed to get some shots outside at least.

After that, it was onwards towards Kansas City. It’s just a few short miles away.

Our hotel was actually in Kansas City, MO, but we were determined to get into actual Kansas officially, so we went to a BBQ place right over the border.

To finish out the evening, we took in a Kansas City Royals game.

They had a Chickie’s & Pete’s! I had to rep Philly a little bit.

It’s the last day of our trip, but our flight isn’t until 2PM, so we decided to sneak in one more museum before we leave- The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.

It’s as much a civil rights museum as it is sports, no doubt of that.

I knew there’d be a shout-out to Willie O’Ree too.

That wrapped up the fun parts- all that remains is the travel home.

After a week of driving that horrible Escape around… I was glad to be home and have my own car!

Thank you for reading, and special thank you to Dana for planning this amazing, unexpected journey!